


Excalibur's kidnapping

by Morrie_Wilde



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Absurd, Anachronism, Canon Era, Comedy, Help, I dont know what's happening anymore..., I had three cans of monster; at least 2L of teas and two coffees, Magic Revealed, Not beta'd...bold of you to assume i can focus long enough, kinda crack!fic, not evil morgana, or at least attempt at comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:07:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29027706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morrie_Wilde/pseuds/Morrie_Wilde
Summary: Excalibur has gone missing.The way to retrieve it is by playing a game not yet invented : poker.It is a crack!fic in which all its characters take things seriously. Excalibur is missing after all, it is serious.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13





	Excalibur's kidnapping

**Author's Note:**

> My genre of predilection used to be crack fics when I started writing, and I thought "why not go back to it".   
> So here you go ! XD   
> I've time travelled ten years ago, you are currently on ff.net, Merlin is not yet over, we are all happy. Disclamer : I dO NoT oWn MeRlin Bbc noR thE cHAraCters T.T 
> 
> NOT BETA'D xoxo

It was just an other day in Camelot. The knights were out in the field swinging sharp metal twigs around. Merlin was sitting on a bench, polishing some pieces of armour mindlessly. Gwen was standing by, biting her lips and closing her eyes every time one knight swung their sword fiercely at their opponent. Gwaine had dropped his shirt, because of course he did. Percival was fighting with a mace and an axe against Lancelot who was perfectioning his foot game. Elyan, his eternal hood on, was in a one-on-one combat with Leon, and it had been going on for hours, neither men ready to bow down.

And then there was Arthur. Confused Arthur. He was walking around the field, lifting weapons here and there, passing his foot through every inch of grass, stopping time to time, hands on hips, looking absolutely baffled. After one too many sighs, he ended up shouting for his manservant. “Merlin!”

The young man placed the shiny helmet on his side and stood up, awaiting the King’s order, praying it would have nothing to do with horse dung today, simply because he did not feel like dealing with horse dung today. Arthur grabbed Merlin’s arm to pull him closer, eyeing around to make sure no one was listening.

“You know the sword you got me,” Arthur started, whispering, “I can’t find it. It’s gone.”

“You lost EXCALIBUR?!” Merlin shouted at the top of his lungs, making few head towards them. Arthur tighten his grip on his manservant’s arm, who lowered his voice. “You...lost Excalibur? How? When? Arthur...this sword is meant to be yours and yours only. Imagine what such weapon could do in the wrong hands?”

“It's fine, I’m sure it’s not far. We'll find it.” Truth be told, Arthur was mostly trying to reassure himself rather than Merlin in that moment. Merlin, on the other hand, was on the verge of a breakdown. He had just defeated a magic wolf the previous night, and no one would thank him for it, he had got into an argument that morning with Cook about Yorkshire pudding and how it was ridiculous for her to cook them because “Yorkshire doesn’t even exist yet...what are you doing?”, and he had dropped his breakfast on his favourite neckerchief, and now he had to go around the castle with the blue one, which was outrageous because his blue one is his sad neckerchief but he was not sad today, he was happy in fact, well ... He used to be happy up until Arthur told him he had lost the most powerful piece of metal in the kingdom. He really wished he had his red neckerchief to reflect how much his blood was boiling. And so, like anything boiling for too long, Merlin's blood overflowed outside of the sauce that was his body in the form of a tirade.

“Fine?! Arthur, this is far from fine!! It might just be a present your manservant gave you in your head, but me?! I got a massive moody Dragon on my back who made me promise the sword would only be yours. Have you ever sworn anything to a twenty tone beast breathing fire Arthur? No! But I did! God... the Lady of the Lake is also gonna do my head in... I should have given the sword back to her long ago... and I don’t think a rose bouquet will appease her... not only did you kill her, you’ve also lost what she was protecting... if she forgives you for it, I’ll get her a medal because damn, she would deserve it! Ok. Let’s think. Chances are you did not misplaced it. You might be a messy prat, but you always took great care of your swords. So next logical explanation? Someone stole it. Oh, this is worse. Oh no. Arthur, did someone stole Excalibur???” Merlin grabbed the King’s shoulder, shaking him slightly.

“A...Dragon?” was all Arthur could say.

“Big lizard with wings yes. Where was the last place you saw the sword? Think!”

“Er... My chambers. I always have it in my chambers but it was not there this morning so I thought May be you had brought it down, in a rare demonstration of planning ahead.”

“But I never plan ahead!” Merlin sighed with exasperation, and started walking his way back to the castle. “Come on. Your chambers. Now.” He shouted across the field once he realised Arthur had not moved. The knights stopped abruptly, watching Arthur trotting to catch on Merlin. Gwaine dried his forehead with his shirt, letting out a relieved “finally!”. The other knights grunted. “Come on guys, hand over the golden coins!”.

________

With a total lack of respect for the door, Merlin kicked it open. He threw all the pillows on the floor, and the blanket quickly followed. He lifted the mattress, and discarded on the side. He then made his way to the wardrobe, throwing every pieces of clothing above his shoulders like a mad man. He moved to the table, lifting each chairs off the floor because maybe, maybe it was there.

“It’s not there.” He finally spoke, out of breath.

“I appreciate your faith in me Merlin. I told you it was not there.” Arthur rolled his eyes, arms crossed on his chest. Did Merlin said...a dragon?

“But there’s a note!” Merlin brandished a piece of parchment.

“I did not see that.” The king would forever deny he was currently pouting...slightly. “What does it say?”

“It’s a ... ransom note? Well, not exactly. It’s a... you know when a knight drops a glove in front of you, and you happen to be too polite so you pick it up and next thing you know, you’re dead? Well, it’s kinda like that.”

Arthur snatched the note from Merlin's hand and read it for himself.

“Poker? They want me to win Excalibur back in a game of poker? What even is a poker? I don’t have time to practise a new weapon Merlin!”

“I thought you were trained to kill since birth?”

“Touché.”

“Ok so...”, Merlin was rubbing his palms on his eyes, visibly on edge, “ Poker... we are few centuries early but surely, we can find playing cards. Gwaine must have a deck. It’s Gwaine. And then... Poker...Poker... I guess we’ve just created poker then. Oh god.”

“Merlin, relax. It’s going to be fine.” Arthur tried to calm his manservant who was clearly about to bury an artery.

“Relax? The only weapon which can kill me just went AWOL, but sure, I should just relax.”

“I’m sorry to break it to you Merlin, but any weapon can technically kill you. That’s the point of a weapon. I mean... I’m surprised Camelot’s staircases have not killed you yet, and that’s not even a weapon!” The king raised an eyebrow as he spoke, and he could even say he was starting to worry about Merlin right now.

“Nope. Magic. Most powerful sorcerer to ever walk the Earth, yada yada yada.” Merlin gestured vaguely around the room, and all the clothes fled back to the wardrobe, the wooden doors creaking as they closed, the mattress slid right back up, the pillows jumped back on the bed and the blanket elevated itself above the bed before falling flat perfectly.

“So...there’s really a dragon then??”

Merlin tilted his head, letting a ‘yes’ out, dragging the word, confused.

“Ok.” And Arthur left the chambers, letting a dumbfounded Merlin standing in the middle of the room.

Merlin dropped his hand which was still mid air. “Ok it is then.”

_____

Time for Merlin to join Arthur, the King was already back on the training field, gathering all his knights.

“A quest is upon us. I’m sure you will use all your strength and courage. We ride at dusk.”

“What is the quest Sire?” Leon enquired, his hands resting solemnly on the handle on his sword planted in the ground.

“The tavern. We play some poker, win my sword back. Easy.”

“I got a deck of cards if any of you would like to practise eh?” Gwaine raised his hand as he spoke, and Arthur mentally sighed because Gwaine indeed had, in fact, a deck of card.

“Sorry Sire, but if we know where and when we have to meet them to... play, why don’t we just fight them and get the sword back?” Lancelot asked, and Percival and Elyan nodded along.

“Because, we fight with honour, and morals and by the rules. They want us to play cards, then we shall. And if we lose, then we shall slaughter them.” Arthur smiled brightly. Merlin rolled his eyes. Sore loser much? “Drop your weapons and let’s form a circle. Alright, Gwaine? Teach us some poker!” Arthur clapped his hands together and all the knights sat down, including Merlin.

“Are you gonna fight tonight?” Arthur enquired, disapprovingly.

“I think you might enjoy some of tricks...My lord.” And with a slight nod, Merlin extracted the four aces out of the deck. Gwaine just leaned slightly towards Percival, asking the giant if this was real or if he was drunk. Percy made Gwainne follow his index fingers and concluded the long haired man was sober. They both looked back at Merlin and let out a ‘nice’ in unison. Lancelot just smiled back at his friend.

Leon, however, was frowning.

“Any comment Sir Leon?” Arthur said, using his most royal voice, tainted with threat.

“Merlin,” Leon ignored the King...actually fully ignored his king the audacity. “Your eyes are flashing gold. Now one might accuse us of cheating tonight if someone sees it. Can you do it with your eyes closed?” Leon had grabbed the deck, placed the aces back and had shuffled it, with some expert moves which made Gwaine low key jealous.

And so Merlin closed his eye.

Four aces stood proudly on the grass.

Tonight, Excalibur would be theirs.

_______

The sun had set, and the horses had stopped. The tavern was standing tall before all the knights, loud chatter dying in the night.

“Let's do this.” Arthur was the first to walk in, Merlin not far behind. In the corner, two cloaked figures were sitting really dramatically, a single candle between them. The king instinctively sat down with them. Merlin was on his right, the rest of knights squeezing here and there, asking around for spare stools to sit around.

Silently, one of the cloaked figures slid some round pieces of wood resembling coins towards each players. Some of them had some red berries smears, some had been brushed with some green grass and others were blue.

No words had be exchanged that cards had already been distributed. Merlin shifted around, uneasy, closing his eyes, looking like he had just been struck with a migraine. He tapped Arthur on his knee high at his attention.

“Are you okay?” Arthur asked, whispering.

“Something is wrong. I can’t use magic.” Merlin stared at the cloak figure. One of them seemed to be smirking...as much as a shadowed face can smirk really. He passed his fingers slowly under the wooden table and felt some scratches... They had carved anti-magic symbols. Damn it.

Arthur threw a few chips in the middle of the table. He had no clue what the colour meant, and he could have bet the castle as far as we was aware. 

Then the cloaked figure placed three cards in the middle and Arthur looked back at Gwaine in panic. That was not what they had played.

“Ah. I taught you Nertz I think. My bad.” Gwaine looked at his cards before looking at his friends. “So er... what do we do?”

“I quit?” Percival said, looking at one of the two cloaked figure. They looked really similar, and both were wearing the same coloured cloak, which really, was just to annoy the author of this story.

“You...fold.” Figure number one spoke, barely a murmur.

“I fold too?” Lancelot followed.

To everybody’s surprise, Leon just raised the bet. Elyan followed. Merlin decided folding was the wisest option. Arthur placed his hands on his dissimulated dagger. Before he could even think about drawing it, cloak number one had Excalibur pressing against Merlin's neck. The manservant gasped, and so the King placed both hands back on the table. The silence was so thick at the table, even the almighty Excalibur could have cut through it.

They all jumped out of their skin when one local drunkard dropped his goblet. Apart the two cloaked figures : they stayed stoic, and dramatic. Their hands were gloved and when one of them placed the last two cards on the table, they struggled to turn them around. If a shadow could give a death glare, then Gwaine would be dead, hiding his nervous laugh behind his hand.

Gwaine cleared his throat. “Can we maybe play with some dice instead?”

The silence was deafening.

“No dice then.” Gwaine leaned back, crossing his arms on his chest.

Merlin looked around, distraught, as no-one seemed to care the blade was still dangerously close to his neck, which happened to be holding his head on his body and he would like to keep it that way.

Leon threw a few more chips on the table. For someone who had no clue what was going on, he certainly showed no lack of confidence.

“Maybe we can all... you know...take a deep breath and maybe ...learn about each other yeah? How...erm...how was your evening...people?” Merlin babbled, trying to draw attention to the blade. Only then Excalibur left his neck. “My evening has been great so far...I’m having a great great time with you all. Superb.” He sighed in relief.

And at that moment, he was convinced one of the cloaked figure winced? Moaned? Squeaked? Made a high pitch noise which some would describe nonsensical?

In the same motion, the two sword kidnappers pushed back their hood.

“You really are no fun guys. Come on! I was about to kill Merlin and none of you attacked?” Morgana cried. Gwen had leaned back in her seat, almost disappointed.

“Since when threatening Merlin is meant to be fun Morgana??” Arthur stated in disbelief. “You could have killed him! Imagine you had to sneeze, and boom, here goes his head rolling on the _filthy_ tavern floor!”

“The fact that you put more emphasis on the filthy floor than my imminent death really touches me Sire.” Merlin looked down, and mentally agreed tough, because it was an especially dirty tavern. The ladies could have at least chosen a better suited place to behead him... a nice field would have done just fine.

“We were bored. Cut us some slack would you?” Morgana drank some of her mead, now that she could do without risking her identity.

“So out of boredom, you stole the most powerful sword of the realm and threaten me with it, the only known weapon able to kill me and to top it off, you blocked my magic by carving the table? No offence, but I think you have some issues. Maybe a nice talk will do just fine next time?”

Morgana chocked on her drink whilst Gwen looked at the knights with eyes so big they could pop off their sockets. Morgana dropped Excalibur abruptly on the table. “Arthur's sword was forged in a dragon's breath?”

“Yup.” Merlin smacked his lips together and quickly retrieved the sword to hand it back to Arthur.

“I’m sorry Arthur, I did not kn- hold up! Merlin!” Morgana laughed incredulously, pointing a finger at the young man. “Only weapon able to kill you?! No way!” She tapped Gwen on the shoulder. “It's him!”

“No way!” Gwen joined her lady in a round of laughter. “You’re Emrys? _The_ Emrys?”

“Yup.” Merlin rolled his eyes. It had been a long day, and going through the Emrys business was not in his schedule. Neither was playing a card game not yet invented to be fair.

“Emrys, as in the druid’s legends?” Percival spoke, startling every body. Even Merlin got taken aback.

“Yes, that Emrys. The most powerful sorcerer to ever walk the Earth.” Merlin was feeling way too scrutinize under every body's gaze. He mindlessly played with the wooden chips instead.

“I almost killed Emrys for shits and gigs...” Morgana downed her drink.

“Now, that’s the stuff of legends eh?” Gwaine downed his drink as well, soon followed by all the knights.

“If you did not know I was Emrys, why carve the symbols though?” Merlin finally asked, more curious than anything.

“I...did not.”

Thunder illuminated the tavern, and a loud rumbled echoed soon after.

“It was me.” A voice rose from the bar. Mary, the tavern owner turned around. “It was a safety feature under Uther's reign. Could risk being executed for hoarding sorcerer so...magic blocking carvings on all the tables.” She shrugged, before turning around to continue her discussion with one of the patron.

“Morgana...” Arthur stared at her, “Did you also know about the dragon?”

“What is it with you and dragons?” Merlin exclaimed, amused more than annoyed.

Arthur shoved his capes in Merlin's face, displaying the golden embroidery of the Camelot’s crest. “You might not have realized, but in like dragons.”

“Ah.”

The group of friends ended up drinking all night, and Merlin promised Arthur, and the knights, and Morgana and Gwen to go and see Kilgharrah the next day. Not sure the grumpy bastard will be too pleased about it..

**Author's Note:**

> Voilà! \\(*.*)/
> 
> (Morrie might be having a breakdown. You can guess it by the way she talks about herself in the third person.) 
> 
> Lots of love xX


End file.
